"There is a little bit of the whore in all of us, gentlemen. What is your price?"
The story of Kerry Packer, (who died yesterday), is fascinating. He was Australia's richest man, and an avowd cricket lover. When he realised that top players weren't receiving a full salary, he created World Series Cricket - a rival cartel that enticed the world's best players with huge salaries. It spawned limited overs, televised matches, innovative camera angles, brightly coloured uniforms, and massive popularity for the game as a whole.
How apt that his beloved Australia has since reinvented Test Cricket with aggressive, attacking play, and the legacy of WSC has been the resurgence of both forms of the game, and a very happy balance between the two. If Twenty20 continues to become successful, it too will owe it's vision to Packer.
It's only natural to compare Packer's actions with the influence that Rupert Murdoch had on Premeirship football, when 20 English clubs broke away from the Football League to create a new division for the sake of TV rights, and higher pay. The move came under the banner of excitement and novelty, and has seen an increase in popularity (at home and abroad), but most people acknowledge the detriment to lower league clubs. As an active participant in the lower levels of English football's pyramid, my judgement of Mr Murdoch isn't kind.
(An aside: When the "Big 5" - Man Utd, Liverpool, Everton, Arsenal & Tottenham - were negotiating the television rights of the soon to be formed Premier League, ITV were hot favourites. Under Greg Dyke they'd already had the rights to top flight football, and all the Chairmen expected them to continue. A surprise occurred, when Mr Murdoch at newly formed Sky managed to deliver a last minute bid that beat ITV. I believe it was a sealed auction, and several attendees were suspicious of how Sky knew what ITV's bid was. During the final stages of the bidding, the Tottenham Chairman - Alan Sugar - had left the room. He was the CEO of Amstrad, a firm that had an exclusive agreement to supply the satellite dishes required for Sky TV. If Sky didn't win the bid, Amstrad would have gone under. The suggestion that Mr Sugar phoned Mr Murdoch to reveal the ITV bid, merging his roles as Tottenham Chairman and Amstrad CEO, is pretty convincing. For more, see this book.)
As the aside shows, there's a clear difference between the Premiership and WSC. Kerry Packer was a dominant actor able to break through the existing system and create his own. It then acted as competitive pressure to turn around both forms, for the benefit of all. A breakaway league in football would be very different. Chiefly, this is because it's hard to envisage an alternative form (in terms of rules etc) that would get a crowd going. I don't think 5-a-side is a solution. 90 minutes of 11-a-side is sporting perfection - there's no scope for an entrepreneur to improve, regardless of the audience. Consquently football will evolve gradually, with technologies and traditions implemented slowly, and power and control seeping to media over the course of many years. 1992 saw English football breakaway, and we're still to see a European Champions League that truly dominates domestic football.
Kerry Packer was an Australian, and stirred things up a little. His legacy to the game of cricket can never be rescinded, and everytime you see Adam Gilchrist (or, I suppose, Mr Flintoff) slug a magnificent six the leather ball will apear destined for the man in the clouds who made it all possible.
p.s. Yes, their websites are an accurate indicator in the gulf in class between Gilly and Freddy.
Recent Comments